@spaceflightpedia.comOn September 29, 2004, Mike Melvill flew SpaceShipOne to 102.9 km. About 50 seconds into the burn, at Mach 2.7, it began rolling rapidly, completing 29 rolls. It was the first of two flights needed to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
@spaceflightpedia.com975 days after the Challenger disaster, Discovery launched STS-26 on September 29, 1988. All five crew members were veterans, the first all-veteran U.S. crew since Apollo 11. Discovery landed safely on October 3, 1988.
@spaceflightpedia.comSoyuz 12 launched 53 years ago today, on 27 September 1973, the first Soyuz crew to fly after the 1971 Soyuz 11 disaster. Three seats became two to make room for pressure suits. Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov landed on 29 September 1973.
@spaceflightpedia.comOnly the gloves came home from a spacesuit reportedly worth 30 million RMB. Eighteen years ago today, Shenzhou 7 launched. On September 27, 2008, Zhai Zhigang spent 22 minutes outside in the Chinese-built Feitian suit, China's first spacewalk.
@spaceflightpedia.comMars Observer went silent on August 21, 1993, three days before its planned Mars orbit insertion. Several of its instruments, including the Mars Orbiter Camera, later flew on missions starting with Mars Global Surveyor in 1996.
@spaceflightpedia.comEnterprise flew on its own for just 5 minutes 34 seconds after 51 minutes 12 seconds atop its 747 carrier. On 23 September 1977, Fred Haise and C. Gordon Fullerton glided it from 24,700 feet to the Edwards AFB lakebed, tail cone still on.
@spaceflightpedia.comAt 853 miles (1,373 km), Gemini 11 set a crewed Earth-orbit altitude record that lasted until Polaris Dawn in 2024. In September 1966, Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon used their Agena target vehicle's rocket to reach that apogee.
@spaceflightpedia.comSoyuz 22 landed 50 years ago today, on 23 September 1976. Its East German MKF-6 camera, built by Carl Zeiss-Jena, could photograph over 500,000 km² in 10 minutes. Bykovsky and Aksyonov took 2400 photographs of 30 geographic areas over 127 orbits.
@spaceflightpedia.comMariner 10's second Mercury flyby: September 21, 1974, 48,069 km above the south polar region. Giuseppe Colombo's resonant solar orbit let one spacecraft revisit Mercury every six months without a new mission.
@spaceflightpedia.comYorick survived the rocket, died two hours after landing. On 20 September 1951 the rhesus macaque, also called Albert VI, rode an Aerobee to 72 km with eleven mice, first monkey to survive landing. Heat stress killed him and two mice in the sealed capsule awaiting recovery. #SpaceflightHistory
@spaceflightpedia.comIn 1956, Jupiter C RS-27 reached Mach 18 — enough to put its fourth stage in orbit. On 20 September it flew 3,355 miles downrange and climbed to 682 miles altitude, more than a year before Sputnik. The missing element was permission. The fourth stage was not allowed to orbit.
@spaceflightpedia.comVoyager 1 snapped Earth and Moon together on Sep 18, 1977, 7.25M miles out, 12 days after launch. Earth outshone Moon, so JPL brightened Moon 3x in composite. Now most distant human-made object. #Voyager1 #SpaceflightHistory #JPL
@spaceflightpedia.comVanguard 3: launched Cape Canaveral Sept 18 1959, orbit 512km-3,750km, 33.35° incline. Ground contact ended after 84 days, but NASA expects 300-year orbit. Third stage left attached, aiding magnetometer readings. #Vanguard3 #SpaceflightHistory
